It's heeeeere! So many amazing papers this year (like all years, GIFcon is the best). I've been excited about it for weeks, and now you all get to see each other's paper topics and be excited too!
Someone beat me to it!!!
New op-ed from me today, looking at the way that queer and trans activists share information on Instagram and some of the problems that can arise.
When you sacrifice nuance in favour of shareability, could that spread unnecessary panic and even misinformation?
xtramagazine.com/power/activi...
I have truly peaked, mastered an artform, theres nowhere to go from here.
"Hobbits dwarves hobbits dwarves GONDOLIN wizard wizard dwarves"
"RONALD WE DONT KNOW WHAT THAT IS, WHAT IS THAT??"
"So you mean he just was throwing easter eggs in that nobody else would understand?"
"Exactly, no one would until the 70s."
"I'm just imagining him sitting at his desk giggling at his little inside jokes while writing, how sweet!"
Yes, it's adorable, actually!
I was explaining Tolkien's writing chronology to a friend (how the Hobbit was not supposed to be part of the mythology, but he couldn't help but throw in references) and she said the funniest thing I have not stopped smiling about:
Today I would like to thank Tolkien Gateway for being mostly reliable when it comes to dates, because I have lent out my copy of OFS and needed a quick reference for the multiple writing/publication dates and didn't want to waste time digging. Bless you TG, thank you for being a friend.
An enormous thank you to everyone who shared Black History Walks' event and the fundraiser for Bill Richmond and Tom Molineaux's blue plaque. A story that's visible is a story remembered.
New donations mean the campaign is nearly half way there! Good people! 🔵😊
www.gofundme.com/f/blue-plaqu...
NEW: A new pre-print study offers the first causal evidence that outsourcing reasoning tasks to AI can rapidly erode users' independent performance AND their will to persist despite difficulty.
"People’s persistence drops... they’re also not willing to try without AI.”
futurism.com/artificial-i...
(I did this to myself, I love being interdisciplinary and I have truly become a fully committed academic anarchist, but my neurodivergent brain is constantly in a panic and a stress)
Every day as an interdisciplinary PhD (who has been jumping across disciplines since I started this journey back in 2008) is like a brand new adventure in methodology gymnastics, in which I am being scored to wildly different standards by each reader.
Someone said, this world is so boring; we don’t have mermaids, werewolves, vampires or other mystical creatures.
Someone replied and said, yall can’t even handle people with different skin colors
🫢 I was gagged
Several folks in my mentions said they quit watching the new Count of Monte Cristo on PBS because it features Black actors. My friend, you are going to be shocked when you learn the ethnicity of Alexandre Dumas.
Anyway, I absolutely did get tickets to see it on Broadway now that it has a higher budget, for when I'm back in town for a wedding. THRILLED. PUMPED. JAZZED. TENS ACROSS THE BOARD.
Anyway, I'm being cringe about musical theater cats but live free, eat trash, be queer, fight the power. This is super important in terms of adapting this One Musical and in 2024 (now 2026) the truth has finally been achieved!! Long overdue stating of the obvious that needed to be done.
In this interpretation, I had the JOY AND DELIGHT of watching these two characters flirt in the background, and then actually dance together in a romantic, affectionate manner. Then cut to me fucking gobsmacked when, under a spotlight, the LONG OVERDUE HAPPENS: A KISS. FINALLY!
Now finally we have this perfect interpretation of Cats as Ballroom culture, in which, for the first time ever, the plot of Cats actually makes any damn sense. Am I sad Tugger wasn't a punk? Sure, but not THAT sad, because making him trade makes perfect sense for this vision. It works contextually!
Then--my nemesis, the Tom Hooper film, in which they made Victoria and Mistoffelees love interests, removed Tugger from Mistoffelees's song, and cut their entire relationship. Deeply suspicious behavior, and unfair to Jason Derulo, who was having a great time.
The first was the flopped revival that, for some reason, tried to modernize Cats by making Tugger a white rapper with dreads??? It was bad. And also very straight.
But!! They are not people, they are singing and dancing cats, so the illusion of propriety is maintained and it remained subtle...but also obvious. Then there was a revival that flopped and an infamous adaptation that both, somehow straightened up Cats.
The fact that the disaster punk that no one can pin down is the one to sing a praise song about how wonderful this camp lil trickster is (the lyrics are the song are great, he's also a menace but a quiet menace) is a weird flex if there's no relationship there. I could tl;dr about this but I won't.
Yet, he shows that he is a simp for one person (cat), and that is the Magical Mister Mistoffelees, who he sings a whole song praising. Mistoffelees is a camp lil magician in sequins who literally pulls a rainbow scarf out of a hat and drags it around stage.
Rum Tum Tugger is a bad boy leather punk wearing a hanky around one leg, flirting aggressively with everyone on stage. He's such a bad boy, no one can ever pin him down. His whole song shows a chaotic brat that all the youths want and all the older cats are long-suffering about. Peak bisexual menace
Back when this show originally came out, I cannot stress enough how aggressively Queer both Mistoffelees and Tugger were coded, but in very different ways. It's very wink wink nudge nudge clear if you're into musical theater (literally or as, you know, code) but also they're cats.
Now that Cats the Jellicle Ball is on Broadway, time to reshare a tweet thread I did when I saw it at PAC:
Exposing myself as extremely cringe but I simply MUST talk about something WILDLY OVERDUE in Cats: The Jellicle Ball: they made it v clear that Mistoffelees and the Rum Tum Tugger are a couple
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Registration is now open for GIFCon 2026!
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#GIFCon #GIFCon2026 #FantasyConference #Fantasy
This is so much my white whale that only about half of this is going to be in my thesis, maybe only a third of this....This could have been its own thesis, but I'm in too deep now.
